Brands Reveal Big Gains from Incremental Improvements in Customer Service

Does adding service channels, leveraging customer feedback and analytics, empowering agents with easier access to knowledge and creating a more customer-centric culture really make that big of a difference to an organization’s productivity and bottom line?

The answer is yes, all the effort that goes into improving internal and external customer service is well worth it. Nucleus Research recently analyzed the experiences of a number of organizations using Microsoft customer service technology including a global software/tech company, a global online media company, a top consumer goods brand and a noted wireless telecom service provider, to understand how advancing the brand’s customer service maturity through incremental additions and improvements delivers measurable gains, and has detailed key findings in a new Customer Service Maturity Guidebook.

Says Nucleus Research vice president Rebecca Wettemann who led the research and reporting:

“Customer service continues to be a key differentiator for companies of all sizes, and the technologies to support customer service have evolved almost as quickly as consumer demands and expectations for new service channels.

“Based on customer interactions and technologies, we identified three stages of maturity: functional, tactical and dynamic. We then tracked the comparative benefits of advancing customer service maturity in terms of increased agent productivity, manager productivity, customer satisfaction and support for growth.”

The 2016 research found that through advancing customer service maturity, organizations can realize in upwards of 25% productivity gains for agents alone.

Check out the characteristics of each stage of maturity, metrics-based case studies, along with insights and advice from Nucleus Research on how to incrementally improve in customer service, in this new guidebook style report:

"A global software company that has been using Microsoft technologies to support its customer service organization found the knowledge base, dashboards, and escalation workflows that extend beyond the customer service organization were key factors in its success. Leveraging data from cases has enabled service to provide direct input into product and service changes resulting in increased sales and increased customer satisfaction – and a Net Promoter Score (NPS) increase of 50 percent."

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